Pakistani serial killer appeals to HC against death sentence

LAHORE: A serial killer in Pakistan, who was sentenced to death for the brutal rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl, on Tuesday challenged his conviction in the Lahore High Court alleging that his trial was conducted in “haste” without fulfilling legal requirements.
In the first ever trial in the country’s history that concluded in shortest period of four days, an anti-terrorism court on Saturday sentenced to death 23-year-old Imran Ali on four grounds — murdering a child, kidnapping a child, rape of a minor, and committing an unnatural act with a minor.

In his appeal, he declared that he is “not guilty”.

He said the trial was conducted in “haste and legal requirements were not fulfilled” during the trial. He appealed to the high court to overturn the ATC’s verdict.

Besides death penalty, Imran was also sentenced to seven years in jail with a fine of Rs 1 million for desecrating the body of a minor.

He was arrested in January, two weeks after he raped and killed the 7-year-old girl and threw her body into a garbage dump in Kasur city, some 50 kilometres from Lahore.